A Little Girl in Old Detroit - Amanda Minnie Douglas (children's ebooks online txt) 📗

must make his adieus to several friends. Madame Ganeau must be congratulated on so fine a son-in-law, the De Bers must have an opportunity to wish him _bon voyage_.

Pani sat out on the cedar plank that made the door-sill, and she was cutting deerskin fringe for next winter's leggings. "Jeanne," she called, "Louis has come to say good-by."

Jeanne Angelot came out of the far room with a curious hesitation. Pani had been much worried for fear she was ill, but Jeanne said laughingly that she was only tired.

"Why, you run all day like a deer and never complain," was the troubled comment.

"Am I complaining, Pani?"

"No, Mam'selle. But I never knew you to want to lie on the cot in the daytime."

"But I often lie out under the oak with my head in your lap."

"To be sure."

"I'm not always running or climbing."

"No, little one;" with smiling assent.

The little one came forward now and leaned against Pani's shoulder.

"When I shall come back I do not know--in a year or two. I wonder if you will learn to talk English? We shall all have to be good Americans. And now you must wish me _bon voyage_. What shall I bring you when I come? Beaver or otter, or white fox--"

"Madame Reamaur hath a cape of beautiful silver fox, and when the wind blows through it there are curious dazzles on every tip."

"Surely thou hast grand ideas, Jeanne Angelot."

"I should not wear such a thing. I am only a little girl, and that is for great ladies. And Wenonah is making me a beautiful cape of feathers and quills, and the breast of wild ducks. She thinks Pani cured her little baby, and this is her offering. So I hardly want anything. But I wish thee good luck and prosperity, and a wife who will be meek and obedient, and study your pleasure in everything."

"Thank you a thousand times." He held out his hand. Pani pressed it cordially, but Jeanne did not touch it.

"The little termagant!" he said to himself. "She has not forgiven me. But girls forget. And in a year or two she will be longing for finery. Silver fox, forsooth! That would be a costly gift. Where does the child get her ideas? Not from her neighborhood nor the Indian women she consorts with. Nor even Madame Ganeau," with an abrupt laugh.

Jeanne was rather quiet all that day and did not go outside the palisade. But afterward she was her own irrepressible self. She climbed the highest trees, she swung from one limb to another, she rode astride saplings, she could manage a canoe and swim like a fish, and was the admiration of the children in her vicinity, though all of the southwestern end of the settlement knew her. She could whistle a bird to her and chatter with the squirrels, who looked out of beady eyes as if amazed and delighted that a human being belonging to the race of the destroyer understood their language. She had beaten Jacques Filion for robbing birds' nests, and she was a whole year younger, if anyone really knew how old she was.

"There will never be a brave good enough for you," said the woman Wenonah, who lived in a sort of wigwam outside the palisades and had learned many things from her white sisters that had rather unsettled her Indian faith in braves. She kept her house and little garden, made bead work and embroidery for the officers and official ladles, and cared for her little papooses with unwonted mother love. For Paspah spent most of his time stretched in the sunshine smoking his pipe, and often sold his game for a drink of rum. Several times he had been induced to go up north with the fur hunters, and Wenonah was happy and cheerful without him.

"I do not want a brave," Jeanne would fling out laughingly. "I shall be brave enough for myself."

"And thou art sensible, Red Rose!" nodding sagely. "There is no father to bargain thee away."

"Well, if fathers do that, then I am satisfied to be without one," returned the child gayly.


CHAPTER IV.

JEANNE'S HERO.

There were many changes to make in the new government. Under the English there had been considerable emigration of better class people and more personal liberty. It was no longer everything for a king whose rigorous command was that there should be no thought of self-government, that every plan and edict must come from a court thousands of miles away, that knew nothing of the country.

The French peasants scattered around the posts still adored their priests, but they had grown more ambitious and thrifty. Amiable, merry, and contented they endured their privations cheerfully, built bark and log cottages, many of them surrounded by sharpened palisades. There were Indian wigwams as well, and the two nations affiliated quite readily. The French were largely agriculturists, though many inside the Fort traded carefully, but the English claimed much of this business afterward.

Captain Porter was very busy restoring order. Wells had been filled with stones, windows broken, fortifications destroyed. Arthur St. Clair had been appointed Governor of the Territory, which was then a part of Illinois, but the headquarters were at Marietta. Little attention was paid to Detroit further than to recognize it as a center of trade, while emigrants were pouring into the promising sites a little farther below.

M. St. Armand had much business on hand with the new government, and was a most welcome guest in the better class families. The pretty demoiselles made much of Laurent and there were dinners and dances and card playing and sails on the river during the magnificent moonlight nights. The young American officers were glad of a little rest from the rude alarms of war that had been theirs so long, although they relaxed no vigilance. The Indians were hardly to be trusted in spite of their protestations, their pipes of peace, and exchange of wampum.

The vessel was coming gayly up the river flying the new flag. There was always a host of idle people and children about the wharf, and now they thronged to see this General Anthony Wayne, who had not only been victorious in battles, but had convinced Joseph Brant, Little Turtle, and Blue Jacket that they were mistaken in their hopes of a British re-conquest, and had gained by honorable treaty much of the country that had been claimed by the Indians. Each month the feeling was growing stronger that the United States was to be a positive and enduring power.

General Wayne stepped from the boat to the pier amid cheers, waving of flags and handkerchiefs. The soldiers were formed in line to escort him. He looked tired and worn, but there was a certain spirit in his fine, courageous eyes that answered the glances showered upon him, although his cordial words could only reach the immediate circle.

Jeanne caught a glimpse of him and stood wondering. Her ideas of heroes were vague and limited. She had seen the English dignitaries in their scarlet and gold lace, their swords and trappings, and this man looked plain beside them. Yet he or some power behind him had turned the British soldiers out of Detroit. What curious kind of strength was it that made men heroes? Something stirred within Jeanne that had never been there before,--it seemed to rise in her throat and almost strangle her, to heat her brain, and make her heart throb; her first sense of admiration for the finer power that was not brute strength,--and she could not understand it. No one about her could explain mental growth.

Then another feeling of gladness rushed over her that made every pulse bound with delight.

"O Pani," and she clutched the woman's coarse gown, "there is the man who talked to me the day they put up the flag--don't you remember? And see--he smiles, yes, he nods to me, to me!"

She caught Pani's hand and gave it an exultant beat as if it had been a drum. It was near enough like parchment that had been beaten with many a drumstick. She was used to the child's vehemence.

"I wish he were this great general! Pani, did you ever see a king?"

"I have seen great chiefs in grand array. I saw Pontiac--"

"Pouf!" with a gesture that made her seem taller. "Madame Ganeau's mother saw a king once--Louis somebody--and he sat in a great chariot and bowed to people, and was magnificent. That is such a grand word. And it is the way this man looks. Suppose a king came and spoke to you--why, you would be glad all your life."

Pani's age and her phlegmatic Indian blood precluded much enthusiasm, but she smiled down in the eager face.

The escort was moving on. The streets were too narrow to have any great throng of carriages, but General Wayne stepped into one. (The hospitable De Moirel House had been placed at his service until he could settle himself to his liking.) Madame Moirel and her two daughters, with Laurent St. Armand, were in the one that followed. Some of the officers and the chief citizens were on horseback.

Then the crowd began to disperse in the slow, leisurely fashion of people who have little to do. Some men took to their boats. It did not need much to make a holiday then, and many were glad of the excuse. A throng of idlers followed in the _chemin du ronde_.

Pani and her charge turned in the other direction. There was the thud of a horse, and Jeanne stepped half aside, then gave a gay, bright laugh as she shook the curls out of her eyes.

"So you have not forgotten me?" said the attractive voice that would have almost won one against his will.

"O no, M'sieu. I knew you in a moment. I could not forget you."

"Thank you, _ma fille_." The simple adoration touched him. Her eyes were full of the subtle glow of delight.

"You know what we spoke of that day, and now General Wayne has come. Did you see him?"

"O yes, M'sieu. I looked sharp."

"And were you pleased?" Something in her expression led him to think she was not quite satisfied, yet he smiled.

"I think you are grander," she returned, simply.

Then he laughed, but it was such a tender sound no one could be offended at it.

"Monsieur," with a curious dignity, "did you ever see a king?"

"Yes, my child, two of them. The English king, and the poor French king who was put to death, and the great Napoleon, the Emperor."

"Were they very--I know one splendid word, M'sieu, _magnifique_, but I like best the way the English say it, magnificent. And were they--"

"They were and are common looking men. Your Washington here is a peer to them. My child, kings are of human clay like other men; not as good or as noble as many another one."

"I am sorry," she said, with quiet gravity, which betrayed her disappointment.

"And you do not like General Wayne?"

"O Monsieur, he has done great things for us. I hear them talk about him. Yes, you know I _must_ like him, that is--I do not understand about likes and all that, why your heart suddenly goes out to one person and shuts up to another when neither of them may have done anything for you. I have been thinking of so many things lately, since I saw you. And Pierre